Communion With Autonomy And Accountability - The Anglican Communion Institute:

"It is the preservation of this catholicity, the relationship of bishop to the college of bishops, and these finally understood to include some kind of universal college, that is most important. In the past, TEC has exercised its autonomy with accountability in communion with the other Anglican churches. Anyone familiar with the formation of TEC will know that this accountability, although voluntary, was expressed in very concrete ways, including in the formulation of our Book of Common Prayer and the consecration of our first bishops. And within TEC, its autonomous dioceses were able to exercise their autonomy with accountability both to the other dioceses of TEC and to the Anglican college of bishops. But TEC has now repudiated any accountability to the larger communion. This presents TEC’s dioceses with an awful choice. How will they exercise their autonomy? To whom will they be accountable? To no one but themselves? To an isolated and declining body that itself rejects accountability to the church catholic? Or, through the Anglican Covenant, to the wider Communion? Autonomy without accountability leads to denominationalism and isolation. Accountability without autonomy leads to authoritarian structures. Communion with both autonomy and accountability is the Anglican hope manifested in the Covenant. For us the choice is obvious, but we recognize that it is not without cost."